


To Be Or Not To Be

by hannahuwu



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Inspired by Music, M/M, To Be Or Not To Be - ONEUS, hongjoong gets a prince charming, hongjoong sees spirits, hongjoong wants sex in return for vengeance, i wrote this in the shower, seonghwa is a spirit, will maybe write smut if someone asked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:27:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27683515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahuwu/pseuds/hannahuwu
Summary: Hongjoong bumps into a spirit with the exact same uniform he has on.
Relationships: Kang Yeosang/Park Seonghwa, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	To Be Or Not To Be

“Hey, hey boy. Wake up. I need you to help me.” 

Hongjoong blearily opens his eyes and gets off the bed, ignoring the spirit hanging from the ceiling.

“He’s so rude,” the spirit huffs, looking at the other spirit occupying Hongjoong’s sofa. Hongjoong simply does not give them attention, getting ready for school as he normally does. Honestly, nobody should blame him. He’s tired, and he’s just been woken up from a pretty good dream by some stupid dead people who trail him around like he’s obliged to solve their problems or find their long lost families or something. Hongjoong stopped caring a very long time ago, if he thinks about it. 

He sighs, pulling his uniform on. Today feels like a very meh day, he predicts, pulling a slice of bread out and taking a bite as he ties his neon pink shoelaces. Technically, they were against the school rules, but it seemed like the teachers let him get away with everything after that one time he expelled a demon from the headmaster’s office. 

“Hey, hey boy. We know you can hear us,” they follow him. He rolls his eyes, hopping on the yellow bike his mom got for him a few years ago before she left him to live alone. His parents were both obviously terrified of him, of how he had gained the trait they’d dreaded his grandmother passing on. His grandmother had patiently guided him, taught him how to differentiate between the dead and the living, how to shut them out. Even when Hongjoong had passed the spirit of a child crying in the middle of a road, seemingly searching for their parent, Hongjoong had settled for looking away. 

When he gets to school, most of the spirits leave him alone, off to do other things. He’s threatened them before after all. Hongjoong was capable of sending them right off to hell if he wanted, and they probably preferred wandering on the Earth hopelessly. 

A student is standing in his way.

“Excuse me, please move,” he curtly says, trying to brush past the student. 

Except that brush never happens. The student turns to look at him sadly, smiling like they wishes to apologise. They’re wearing the same uniform as Hongjoong, so they were obviously a student here. But this uniform design was pretty new. Their death must have been recent.

“Park Seonghwa?” He reads the other’s tag.

The student nods. 

“Pronouns? I’m not going to disrespect you just because you’re dead.” _You disrespect spirits every day, you liar,_ a little voice in his head says. 

“He, please.” Seonghwa bites his bottom lip nervously. “Is this your classroom?”

“No, mine’s on the other end of the corridor.”

“I see.” Seonghwa says. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever met you, Seonghwa.” _That’s because you don’t have any friends, idiot._

“No, we have never.” Seonghwa returns to looking at a specific desk in the room. It has a vase, with a single white flower in it. “So why can you see me?”

“I was born with it. Now why aren’t you moving on?”

And in that moment, a sort of thickness fills the air and the anger in Seonghwa’s eyes are visible. Hongjoong chuckles. Seonghwa didn’t look like a vengeance kind of guy. Oh well, it isn’t right to judge a book by it’s cover, huh. 

“Is that your desk? The one with the flower?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you die?”

“Last week.”

“When did you realise you could come back?”

“Last night? I don’t know.”

“So, why?” Hongjoong leans back on the wall beside Seonghwa, dropping his bag to the ground. 

“There’s a boy.”

Hongjoong clicks his tongue. “Love, I’m guessing? Didn’t work out too well now, did it?” 

“Shut up!” Seonghwa roars, the glass cracking. “You wouldn’t get it!” He glares at the shorter male.

“Oh? Have I struck a nerve?” Hongjoong giggles. _God, he’s probably nuts._

“You don’t understand,” Seonghwa sighs, sliding down to the floor. “It was different with him.”

“I don’t understand, no. Do you want me to understand?” Hongjoong cocks his head to one side, finding himself seemingly entranced by how pretty the spirit before him was. _Seonghwa is so much like a prince._

The spirit inhales. Ironically, spirits don’t need to breathe. Seonghwa probably hasn’t caught on to that yet. “Is there anything you could do for me if I told you?”

“Maybe,” Hongjoong grins. “Tell me first, and I’ll give you an offer.”

~

  
Kang Yeosang showed up one day, with his beautiful birthmark in its bare glory to class. He’d been transferred to skip a year. Apparently he was really smart. Seonghwa watched him out of the corner of his eye curiously, as Yeosang bowed slightly and tucked a stray wisp of blonde hair behind his ear before clearing his throat. 

_“Hi, everyone. My name is Yeosang. Nice to meet you. I hope all of us get along.”_

Seonghwa was whipped.

Something that was very out of character of Seonghwa, who was literally under a scholarship and so immersed in his work most of the time that he barely spared a thought about relationships. Even at the age of seventeen, he’d never seen a second of porn. Didn’t even know the PornHub jingle when he first heard someone playing it from a meme on instagram. 

So maybe one day, a month later, when Kang Yeosang confessed to him after they’d met up at the rooftop to have lunch together as they’d somehow fell into a habit of doing, Seonghwa was overjoyed. They’d giggled all the way down the stairs, fingers intertwined as they sat at their desks.

Their relationship felt so right. Everything fell into place when Seonghwa was with Yeosang, when Yeosang would let out a smile that rivalled the sun, teasing Seonghwa about the way he completely buttoned up his shirt.

_“Seonghwa-hyung,”_ he’d whispered one day. _“Is it okay if I stay over at your house this weekend?”_ He pouted, leaning into Seonghwa’s side.

Seonghwa stuttered. _“I share a really cramped room with two other siblings and my parents don’t really let anyone stay over, I’m sorry.”_ Yeosang said nothing, but nodded silently.

Yeosang left him on read the next day, which was a Saturday. Which was usually the day they’d go out and have Yeosang’s favourite parfait by the library they often visited together.

And the next.

And the next, when Yeosang had skipped school and refused to pick up any of his calls. 

Seonghwa hadn’t Yeosang’s address, but roughly knew where he lived and rode over, spending an entire day just riding his bike around the area. As he turned a corner, he saw a flash of familiar blonde, and a smile that he’d seen so many times and yet apparently none that were like this specific one that was being worn.

_“Yeosang!”_ He called out. The blonde turned to look at him and frowned. Around him, three seemingly older men turned to look at Seonghwa as his bike halted.

_“You know this guy, sweetie?”_ One of them asked. Yeosang shook his head. 

_“Nope, never seen him in my life.”_ His voice held a cold edge to it. 

_“Yeosang, what-“_ Seonghwa walked towards them.

_“Back off, kid. He doesn’t know you, stop being a creep.”_ Another piped up, narrowing his eyes at Seonghwa.

_“No, I do know him! Yeosang, what’s the meaning of all this? Who are these guys?”_

Yeosang rolled his eyes. _“You have no business asking, but if you really want to know, this is my boyfriend,”_ he leaned into the side of the man sitting on his right, _“and these are his friends.”_

Seonghwa was stunned. _“Yeosang, you-“_

_“Sweetie, go upstairs yeah? We’ll deal with this guy for you.”_ Yeosang’s ‘boyfriend’ motioned for Yeosang to leave, slipping him a card. 

_“Yeosang!”_ Seonghwa yelled.

_“Shut the fuck up, annoying-ass kid.”_ He felt a blow to his jaw, his eyes watering. _“Nobody harasses my boyfriend, got it?”_

Seonghwa vaguely remembers the words before he feels his bones crunching, of his back being stepped on, or when he feels them hoist him up and throw him over a cliff after driving with him in the trunk. He vaguely remembers screaming. Vaguely remembers that feeling of falling, falling, before his head knocks against the back of a boulder and he blacks out. 

When Seonghwa wakes up, he feels the pain set in. Both the physical pain, and the pain of knowing the boy he knew as Kang Yeosang. He gets up, brushing the dirt off his clothes. 

Except he doesn’t get up, because apparently he’s still on the ground. When he reaches out to touch himself, he finds that he simply cannot touch anything. His eyes trail down to his torso, where he realises a large portion of his body’s been crushed. Like he’d been run over. He feels himself retch, but nothing comes up. He simply collapses again, before he awakens to a white washed morgue a few days later. Here, he stands, and walks to school. He’s not sure what else he can do.

  
~

“And the worst part is when he came to my funeral.” Seonghwa seethes. “He just waited, until everybody left, and went “Good on you to be dead, you were useless alive anyway.” How fucking dare he.”

By the time Seonghwa is done with his story, he’s got so much anger in his eyes Hongjoong wants to give his head a little pat. “I just want to get back at him, I want him to feel my pain. How fucking dare he,” Seonghwa grits out.

“I could help you get revenge, if you wish.” Hongjoong’s eyes twinkle. “I’ll offer you a deal.”

Seonghwa turns to look at him. “What deal?”

“Bound yourself to me, be my prince charming.” Hongjoong proposes, grinning like the cheshire cat. “And consider Kang Yeosang dead.”

“How does binding yourself to someone else work?” Seonghwa murmurs. 

“It’s easy, all you have to do is claim me, or I could claim you, and we’d be bound together.”

“Claim… you…?”

“God, Seonghwa, I mean you could fuck me, or I could fuck you. It works either way.” His eyes glint mischievously. 

Seonghwa blushes. “I’ve never—“

Hongjoong laughs. “That’s cute. I’ll help you out, yeah? Just agree to the terms and conditions, and I’ll give you a physical body for a while and the knowledge to please me. Is that fair?” 

Seonghwa splutters out a barely coherent response. 

“Words, Seonghwa. I need to know if you really want this. I can only seek revenge for you if you agree. Yeosang doesn’t stand a chance against me.”

Seonghwa’s eyes flare at the mention of the younger’s name. “Yes.”

“Yes? Okay, so-“ Hongjoong snaps his fingers. A large shadowy vine with brambles makes itself known, wrapping around Seonghwa’s neck. He hisses out in pain, but as a type of black liquid seeps into him, he is seemingly able to touch Hongjoong. “There you go! Good as new,” Hongjoong smiles. “Except your blood is now black, I’m afraid. I can’t do too much about that.”

“It’s okay,” Seonghwa rasps out, the feeling of the brambles still digging into his skin. When Hongjoong taps at the vines, they disappear into thin air without a trace. There’s an unfamiliar aching in his body, a sort of pleasant burn that makes him want to reach forward and bend Hongjoong over a table. 

Hongjoong throws his head back in a sort of maniacal laughter. “Why, I’d love you to bend me over, Seonghwa, but I for one unfortunately have class right now. I’ll be taking away your physical state for the time being, but you’ll get it back when it’s necessary, fret not.”

  
~

  
Yeosang stares at the desk in front of him when class ends and everyone has left, eyeing the flower in the vase. He stands, walking over to it. He knocks the vase over, waiting to hear it shatter. 

It does not. 

_“Do you wish the flower death, as you did with me?”_ Yeosang hears a much too familiar voice. 

He turns to nobody. 

He sighs, walking out the classroom door. Only he ends up on the rooftop instead of the hallway. He screams. 

“Did you know how much pain I felt, Yeosang?” He hears the voice again. Only this time, he sees Seonghwa standing there, as if he were alive. 

In truth, Seonghwa is sitting in a corner, watching as Hongjoong borrows his physical form and manipulates it to his will. He’d rather watch. 

“S-Seonghwa—“ Yeosang gasps out.

“I want you to feel how I felt.” Hongjoong, still in Seonghwa’s body, smiles eerily. He snaps his fingers, summoning shadow figures. Seonghwa simply watches from the side as Yeosang gets brutally beaten up, screaming and yelling and kicking and thrashing as bruises bloom on the expanse of his skin. 

“Seonghwa, please!” Yeosang calls out, face tear streaked. Seonghwa feels a pang of regret, but Hongjoong carries on, letting the shadows do as they please with the begging boy. All of a sudden, the figures stop, and Yeosang inhales before they hoist him up, walking towards the edge of the rooftop. “No, no no no, Seonghwa, please!” He sobs as the figures bring him over the edge, his body suspended in the air. 

“Hongjoong, wait.” Seonghwa walks over, a frown creasing into his brow. “I want him to explain.”

Hongjoong pouts before turning back to the mess he’s made. “You didn’t deserve me, Yeosang.” 

Yeosang shakily nods. “I didn’t, Seonghwa. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve a lot of things, the same way I don’t deserve a happy ending. I had to stay somewhere, Seonghwa, my mother, she- she’s not the best. She wanted me out for the week, and I had nowhere to go, and god knows how much I wanted to stay with you, hoping you’d say yes, that I wouldn’t have to try and find an alternative.” He chokes up. “A part of me died that day, Seonghwa.”

Seonghwa finds himself shedding a tear while Hongjoong’s face remains emotionless, simply staring back. It’s strange, Seonghwa thinks. To be looking back at your own face. 

“I love you, Seonghwa. I should’ve never left. I shouldn’t have let them do what they did to you- I’m so so sorry—“ Yeosang rushes out. “I deserve this.”

“I agree,” Hongjoong responds, raising his hand to snap his fingers. 

“No!” Seonghwa calls, falling into his physical state. Hongjoong’s face reverts to his own, wearing the same cold look he had when he walked through Seonghwa that morning. 

“S-Seonghwa? Seonghwa!” Yeosang cries out. 

“We can let him go, Hongjoong. He’s explained himself.” He grips onto the other. 

Hongjoong giggles. “That’s not how it works, silly.” He snaps his fingers, and Yeosang lets out a high pitched scream as he falls. “I promised I’d kill him for you.” 

Seonghwa falls to his knees, screaming out in agony as he watches Yeosang’s lifeless body bleed out on the concrete below. 

“You’re my prince charming now, Seonghwa.”

**Author's Note:**

> :) are you mad at me lmaoooo


End file.
